There are times when I am researching these extended looks at F1’s past that I have to do a double take at the knowledge I have just learnt. The entire saga behind this week’s look at classic cars is one of those moments. I knew snippets of it and some of the headlines surrounding it, but the more I investigated, the more my jaw dropped in utter amazement.
Life Racing Engines, [featured a couple of weeks ago], is without question the most hapless team in history. But it was at least run with passion, even if the execution never rose above morbidly amateur. Less than two years after the collapse of Life, a new kid on the block arrived to challenge for the role of worst team in F1 history: Andrea Moda.
This team became the last of the rogue entries that managed to get on the grid in a way that today is frankly unthinkable. Money makes the world go round, but in Andrea Moda’s case it circled a drain, with fake money causing its long-overdue downfall. Like Life, it entered at a time when upwards of 40 cars rocked up at a circuit in an attempt to take part in the race.
A problem child from birth
To understand just how ridiculous, unprofessional, and downright dangerous this team was, one only has to look at its birth. Because this team did not start out as Andrea Moda, it actually rose from the ashes of the old Coloni team. To say that Coloni did not exactly set the F1 world ablaze during its tenure would be a massive understatement.
This was a minnow team that was not classified in any of the F1 seasons that it competed in, using the likes of Subaru and underpowered Ford engines. Having raced just one car in 1991 with a team consisting of just six people, and failing to qualify in all of them, team owner Enzo Coloni opted to sell up. His choice of buyer, however, would come to test F1, the FIA and common sense as a whole.
The new owner of this dead F1 project was an Italian businessman named Andrea Sassetti. His dealings and wealth are the subject of intense debate. If believed, he had ties to the Italian mafia or achieved his wealth through gambling. Another account links it to his father, a wealthy shoe manufacturer. It is these shoes that form the next part of the saga.
Sassetti decided to rebrand the team to Andrea Moda, his designer shoe company. Nothing wrong with this at all; it’s actually, by today’s standards, quite a unique idea and IP. His next steps were to operate the team out of his Coloni’s old workshops in Passignano sul Trasimeno, with staff from his shoe empire hired to perform important tasks like employing the car.
Alex Caffi and Enrico Bertaggia were hired as drivers, with a deal struck with Judd to provide V10 engines. The team was now ready to commence what would become a memorable 12-race existence for all the wrong reasons.
A first run-in with the FIA
For any new team, the main objective is to compete with dignity and grow as an outfit. Learning the ins and outs of the sport is vital in your maiden year, as is developing relationships with your competitors. Sassetti chose not to do this; instead, he managed to alienate the FIA before his fledgling team had even turned a wheel on track.
Back in the 1990s, all new teams had to submit a fee of £100,000 to join the grid. Breadcrumbs by today’s standards, it had the purpose of demonstrating to the FIA that a new team had the cash funds to operate. Sassetti, although in possession of two cars for his fledgling outfit’s first race, had an issue. A deal had been struck with Nick Worth’s Simtek team to run a car designed for BMW to run back in 1990, but this would take time. So, instead, Andrea Moda rocked up to the first race in South Africa with heavily modified and rebranded versions of the car bought from Coloni.
The cars ran the familiarisation session for all teams at Kyalami on the Thursday of the race, also taking part in a few reconnaissance laps, but none of the official action. The reason for this? A political standoff between the Team Principal and the FIA had started in earnest, one which Sassetti stood no chance of winning. Yet, he persisted, to the detriment of his team’s reputation.
Sassetti attempted to argue that because these were old cars, and the team personnel employed were not new, but in fact Coloni employees that he was not a new team. In essence, he believed that the assets of the team cancelled out the fact that the team had transferred hands. The FIA took a less than favourable view of this and refused them entry for the weekend, leaving the team no option but to try again in Mexico a couple of weeks later. Again, Sassetti initially refused to pay, but eventually relented.
Driver merry-go-round amid embarrassing failures to qualify
Andrea Moda faced a new challenge in Mexico. They were now officially part of the F1 fraternity, with all the prestige that came with it, except one rather large elephant in the room. The car itself. The new S921 had been completed by Simtek, but had yet to take shape as the weekend action got underway. Still being built, the team ran out of time, and neither Caffi nor Bertaggia took to the track.
Now, I’m the first to say be different and unique, but not having a car able to race at the peak of Motorsport is a bit like the Premier League staging a match in a packed-out stadium with an imaginary football. The drivers, quite rightly, seemed to agree and publicly criticised the team’s operations. A dangerous situation for any team; it takes a careful hand to steady the ship. Instead, Sassetti chose the nuclear option, and fired both Caffi and Bertaggia on the spot.
Two new drivers were drafted in for Brazil, in the form of the highly experienced Roberto Moreno, and newcomer [and now former Top Gear Stig] Perry McCarthy. A new problem reared its head when the team rocked up for the weekend: the FIA denied McCarthy a super licence. That meant only one car could run, and Moreno did not get even remotely close to pre-qualifying. While McCarthy did get his super licence in Spain, his car only made it as far as the end of the pit lane before expiring. This would be the start of a miserable experience for McCarthy, as a new development at the team would see a new run-in with the FIA.
Bertaggia, still very much fired, approached Sassetti with the promise of $1 million in sponsorship if he could have his drive back. Naturally, wanting the extra cash, Sassetti agreed, but the FIA intervened once again after the somewhat unceremonious double firing of both drivers just one race before and did not permit the switch. In any normal situation, a team would make do and plan for next season, or plan for a possibly better option.
Instead, Sassetti chose to completely ignore McCarthy and prioritise Moreno only. But he took this to a level that, even back in the 1990s, is unthinkable.
Qualifying breakthrough proves to be a false dawn before a legally induced death
The next race in Monaco demonstrated the level to which Sassetti would uphold this idea. Throwing the might of his team [as small as it was], Moreno progressed past pre-qualifying and would take the start of the 1992 Monaco Grand Prix. The same could not be said for McCarthy. He completed just one lap in pre-qualifying, with a lap time of over 17 minutes as his car was undrivable.
Despite the herculean effort of Moreno, the Brazilian’s Monaco Grand Prix lasted just 11 laps, as his Judd V10 expired. This would be the only race the team would ever qualify for, as the rest of its existence was characterised by a never-ending saga of failure and highly questionable practices, combined with events conspiring against the team in ways that you simply could not make up.
The first was entirely the team’s own doing, as Sassetti did not pay a fee to Judd ahead of Canada, leaving the team without an engine. Andrea Moda was not prevented from borrowing another one from a rival [the idea of this today is utterly maddening], but neither car pre-qualified again. In France, Andrea Moda fell victim to a lorry driver blockade due to the fuel crisis; the only team on the grid not to clear it, so did not race there either.
These kinds of events do not exactly raise morale. Seeing the writing on the wall, sponsors deserted the team, along with staff who could no longer take the situation on a rapidly sinking ship. Then, in Hungary, McCarthy was sent out with just 45 seconds on the clock, incurring the wrath of the FIA, which said Andrea Moda must treat all cars equally, or they risked being thrown out of the sport.
But things came to a head in Belgium. McCarthy was supposedly sent out with a flexing steering column, a fault found on Moreno’s car. This has never been proven one way or the other. But this no longer mattered after Sassetti was arrested by police for allegedly forging invoices. That spelt the end for the team, as it was banned for bringing the sport into disrepute. The team had the guile to turn up in Italy, but was promptly turned away.
No team has ever been quite like Andrea Moda since its departure. A team that operated in a way that high school students would question if they were given charge of a team for a day. It is a reminder of why such stringent due diligence now exists for new entries into F1. The destiny of the two cars at the centre of this weird saga is a mystery.
Today, Andrea Moda is, in some circles, revered in much the same way an underdog is. The problem with that is this particular underdog broke every regulation and turned the sport into a joke. When writing a headline for this look at quite possibly the worst team in F1 history, I realised there isn’t one to do it justice. Andrea Moda is known and met with either hushed tones or awkward faces. I’ll stick with actual underdogs, please.
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